11-Year-Old Coloradan Will Brew Beer In Space, By Proxy

minty3 writes "An 11-year-old Colorado boy may have found a way to literally make a beer that's out of this world. Michal Bodzianowski, a sixth grader at Douglas County's STEM School and Academy in Highlands Ranch, Colo., recently won a national competition where his beer-making experiment will be flown to the International Space Station." Noting that beer is safer than contaminated water, Bodzianowski pointed out that beer could be useful “in future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source."

Comments

Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

What next, the five year old girl gets flown to the capitol to cook a batch of meth in the bathtub?

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd consider meth if it was sold by cute girls loitering outside stores in military uniforms. As long as they didn't look like they were going to stab me.

Anyway, this should be a good test of science. Beer in space, sounds like a good combination (probably better than meth in space to be honest). It should be better than the "vodka" those Russians make out of old tang.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[h4rr4r]

What exactly is wrong with that?
Methamphetamines have all kinds of medical uses and battlefield preparation can be very useful.

Oh yeah you're just a shitty troll.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[wisnoskij]

Didn't you learn anything in basic chemistry, you need a boiling flask to make meth.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Pseudonym Authority]

I've found that things that are prepared in bathtubs to rarely have very much medicinal value. And with the exception of child soldiers, I've yet to see a regular military that has it's soldiers use crank in battle. Have you ever seen a tweaker? Not someone you want to give a gun. Or that's my experience at least. Maybe it was better for you when you tried meth.

Oh yeah you're just a shitty troll.

You know, people do make these things called `jokes' some times. I thought it was kinda funny. But it's okay if you want to karma whore too I guess.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[niado]

And with the exception of child soldiers, I've yet to see a regular military that has it's soldiers use crank in battle.

You don't seem to know what you're talking about.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

You are junkie scum. When the race wars come you'll be executed with the other degenerate filth that pollutes our streets.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Pseudonym Authority]

I was thinking in a modern context, not something that happened 70 years ago. Continuing on that article....

Methamphetamine and amphetamine were given to Allied bomber pilots during World War II to sustain them by fighting off fatigue and enhancing focus during long flights. The experiment failed because soldiers became agitated, could not channel their aggression and showed impaired judgment.[18] Rather, dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine) became the drug of choice for American bomber pilots, being used on a voluntary basis by roughly half of the U.S. Air Force pilots during the Persian Gulf War, a practice which came under some media scrutiny in 2003 after a mistaken attack on Canadian troops.[31]

Not meth (admittedly, on a technicality).

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[h4rr4r]

Uh ever hear of "Go Pills" go ask your local fighter pilot. The military still uses them. They are some sort of amphetamine.

The Nazi's actually prepared methamphetamine in the field and used it.

I am not speaking of using tweakers as soldiers, just keeping your current soldiers up and running with no sleep or food for days at a time.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[jandrese]

Everything I know about making Meth I learned from Breaking Bad.

Re: Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that "anchovie sauce" dripping out of your mother's old pu tang.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Nazi's greengrocer actually prepared methamphetamine in the field and used it."

FTFY. Look up "grocer's apostrophe" and blush. You have no idea how stupid that makes you look to an educated person.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[h4rr4r]

Look up "I noticed after I hit submit and slashdot has no edit button".

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[niado]

They used meth widely before the side effects were properly understood. 70 years isn't that long ago.

They used dextro (which, as you mentioned, differs technically from meth) very recently. I believe it is still in use currently, though probably not for much longer if so.

I suspect there are numerous not-so-above-board governments and extra-governmental groups that still distribute meth to certain personnel even today, since it's easy to make in a pinch and meets their short-term goals. Admittedly I have not done much research into this.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks fine to me, he just misspelled "actuary".

It's a little known fact that Hitler had just one guy making all his meth for him and this guy happened to perform calculations for insurance companies before the war. So naturally he's referred to as "the Nazi's actuary".

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[sjames]

You must not know about go pills.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Samantha Wright]

Wikipedia is quick to point out that, since there's more than one grocer guilty of that particular offence, it's properly referred to as a grocers' apostrophe. (And now I, Zoidberg, will make with the oh-ing and the snapping.)

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh ever hear of "Go Pills" go ask your local fighter pilot. The military still uses them. They are some sort of amphetamine.

The Nazi's actually prepared methamphetamine in the field and used it.

I am not speaking of using tweakers as soldiers, just keeping your current soldiers up and running with no sleep or food for days at a time.

Ya, that's how you turn into a tweaker- by staying up for days at the time. Drugs or not, after a few days with no sleep you'll start to hallucinate and your judgement goes to shit, you start getting paranoid and having other side effects. The drugs tweakers take actually don't do all that much directly other than rot your teeth out of your skull and cause nasty skin conditions. Most of the crazy shit tweakers, geekers, and crackheads do is usually a result of staying awake for upwards of a week or two (or more) at a stretch.

As for the "Go Pills", those are Dexadrine, which is also an amphetamine very similar to methamphetamine (and often simply called "Dexies"). They prescribe them to people with narcolepsy and kids with ADD/ADHD. And yes, the USAF has been giving them to fighter pilots... that issue surfaced when someone bombed a convoy of Canadians by mistake after staying awake for several days.

People tend to get confused because the terms "crank" and "meth" are used to refer to a wide variety of amphetamines, not just the substance which a scientist would refer to as 'methamphetamine'. "Meth" (in street language) is a pure (or at least relatively pure) form, crank is a bathtub concoction which usually has some amphetamine component but usually a whole lot of other (often random) crap mixed in as well.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[mcgrew]

I've yet to see a regular military that has it's soldiers use crank in battle.

How about the United States Air Force?

BTW, "it's" is a contraction of "it is."

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[mcgrew]

You know, people do make these things called `jokes' some times.

Bad joke, offtopic, and insulting to beer drinkers. What's worse, so many people bit the troll that by now, actual discussion of the topic is done. Read the /. FAQ -- it's a troll.

Re:Absolutely disgusting

[h4rr4r]

The drugs do not rot out your teeth or cause those skin conditions. Those are side effects of not taking care of yourself and poor lifestyle in general. Most of those folks would have similar hygiene issues without the drugs. Go visit very poor folks sometime.

That is why they also have "no-go pills".

Yeah sure

[Moblaster]

Drinking beer for hydration purposes... good luck with that.

Re:Yeah sure

[idontgno]

It works for dwarves.

Clearly, what's being prototyped here is a hybrid of Dwarf Fortress and Kerbal Space Program.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

For centuries before potable drinking water became widespread, beer was the beverage of choice. It wasn't strong beer, but what would be called "small beer," which was maybe 1-2% ABV. It's safer than untreated water, beer must be boiled in the brewing process. No known harmful microorganisms will grow in beer, though some which give it an off taste will. When given the choice between a possibly unsafe water source and beer, beer is the best choice.

Re:Yeah sure

[rjlouro]

There are studies that claim that - http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/10/scientists-suggest-beer-after-workout/

Re:Yeah sure

[mlts]

This is what people in ancient Egypt did, because water in/around the Nile wasn't exactly mountain stream pure.

With enough alcohol to kill the bad bugs, a beer can do a good job at getting rid of thirst but without getting people too drunk or dehydrated.

There are brewing recipes for homebrewers from those times (how authentic, I have no clue). It might be interesting to brew a "small beer", and see how it works versus say, Gatorade.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really the alcohol that kills the bugs (you need a very high concentration for that, and you can only get that through distilling), it's the yeast outcompeting the other microorganisms.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

With enough alcohol to kill the bad bugs, a beer can do a good job at getting rid of thirst but without getting people too drunk or dehydrated.

Pretty sure it's not the alcohol production that staves off bacteria. Rather it's the boiling of the water in conjunction with the antiseptic properties of hops.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a combination of the fermentation and boiling that purified the water.

Re:Yeah sure

[universalconstant]

Hops, alcohol, and the carbon dioxide dissolved in it are all going to help stop unwanted bacteria from growing in beer.

Re:Yeah sure

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Hops are a fairly recent addition to beer. Certainly not something that the ancient cultures used.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually... I think that's only partially true. You can kill most bacterial and fresh water pathogens with a concentration of over 10%. In addition I myself can and have brewed mead (honey wine) at between 20-22% abv using a champagne yeast that is bred to survive in high alcohol environments and attempts to ferments to dryness. (I kept feeding it honey till the little monsters just couldn't go on.)

But the argument is more about small beer, which was much weaker. So it's probably a combination of the yeast crowding out bad bugs, the carbon dioxide, and boiling (if they did, not all beers are boiled) and lastly the minor amount of alcohol in the beer.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

As a brewer, I can tell you that this is not the case. When making alcohol, any kind, sanitation is taken very carefully because you want to make sure that only your yeast makes it into your must. Wild yeast is "fine" but will give off-flavors and won't ferment to a higher ABV. Anything else that gets in there is going to ruin your batch and make it undrinkable.
Even after fermentation, you typically add potassium metabisulfate and potassium sorbate to kill off anything that's living in there and prevent it from coming back.

In short, it's the other way around. You are protecting your yeast from any other microorganisms.

Re: Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Then surely your mother's snatch must be a great source of refreshment. You should give it a try.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that they didn't have StarSan in Sumer circa 10,000 BCE, right?

Re:Yeah sure

[Codifex Maximus]

Why not have a "Small Beer"?

Re:Yeah sure

[cusco]

Boiling and the change in PH are more important than the alcohol content when it comes to keeping the bacterial load low, although that certainly helps.

Re:Yeah sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I do.
You do realize that what your arguing has absolutely nothing to do with anything, right?

Whether or not StarSan was invented did not fundamentally change yeast or brewing as a whole. They would still need to worry about sanitation back then or they would end up with an infected batch just the same as now.

Re:Yeah sure

[jxander]

Sanitation is important in brewing for taste moreso than safety.

A little something extra might make your brew a bit funky... but it's still significantly safer than the water, pre-beerification.

Re:Yeah sure

[Greyfox]

Yeah but if your dwarves are injured they have to drink water or they'll die of thirst!

Noting that beer is safer than contaminated water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok... and marijuana smoke is probably better for you than the vacuum of space... so...

11-year-old?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is why an eleven-year-old is brewing alcoholic beverages to begin with. Those are for grown-ups. And preferably not for them either.

Re:11-year-old?

[h4rr4r]

Why?
If it was suitably low alcohol it would be fine. Think 1% or so. Why not for grownups?

Stupid troll is stupid.

Re:11-year-old?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is why an eleven-year-old is brewing alcoholic beverages to begin with. Those are for grown-ups. And preferably not for them either.

For most of the history of civilization children have been drinking alcohol. It's much healthier than cholera.

Re:11-year-old?

[elfprince13]

Bingo.

Re:11-year-old?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Same for wine. IIRC, ancient wines had lower alcohol and were ndeed used for drinking, not just for the alcohol effect. You might carry a wine skin for drinking, not drunking.

Re:11-year-old?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's no German beer here, okay, Hitler?"

Re:11-year-old?

[Swampash]

The pathological aversion to any combination of children and alcohol is a Puritan thing that seems unique to the USA.

I live in wine country Australia, and the local high school not only has winemaking as part of the curriculum but the school has a cellar door. Wine sales 9am-3pm Mon-Fri.

My 8-year-old son can pick the difference between Syrah and Grenache.

I'll never forget my first family holiday to the USA, I would have been 15 years old. Sitting at a restaurant in Anaheim recovering from a day pounding the paths of Disneyland, waiter comes up to the table to take our drinks orders; when I got to me I asked "what beers do you have on tap here?" The waiter sputtered a bit in confusion then explained to me that he could not serve alcohol to a 15-year-old no matter what my preference of beer was. My parents just shrugged like "meh, when in Rome," and I had a soda.

Weird.

Re:11-year-old?

[Anonymous Coward]

But this is American beer, The crew can just piss in a cup and save the time and effort

Re: 11-year-old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately Europe is slowly going the American way too ( in a lot of ways) and surprise , surprise , the drunk driving accidents are on the rise here among youth.

Re:11-year-old?

[Sperbels]

11 year old children may not drink beer. You don't need to drink beer in order to brew it.

Re:11-year-old?

[cusco]

I grew up in northern Michigan, and made my first wine when I was about 10. Picked a bucket full of mulberries, squeezed the juice, my mom supervised so that I didn't burn myself with the sugar syrup, and my dad helped me make a bubbler. I'd been drinking a small glass of wine at family dinners since probably five years old, so I knew enough to recognize that I had a really good touch making wine when I tapped that first gallon a couple of months later. Been making homemade wine ever since, taught my nephew how to do it, and my wife's niece too.Don't know why more people don't, it's a lot of fun.

Re:11-year-old?

[Swampash]

Haha, nice work!

Yep, America's weird. You can give a kid a loaded gun no worries, but a sip of wine? YER GOIN' TA HELL!

Re:11-year-old?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yep, America's weird. You can give a kid a loaded gun no worries, but a sip of wine? YER GOIN' TA HELL!

And God forbid a child should see a naked breast or penis. That means the END of the WORLD.

Very safe indeed

[pesho]

Noting that beer is safer than contaminated water, Bodzianowski note that beer could be useful “in future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source."

Yeah, nothing is safer in a confined zero-G environment full of electronics, than a liquid electrolyte pressurized with toxic gas. Don't believe me? Here, have a beer and we can go ever the details.

Re:Very safe indeed

[intermodal]

You're dealing with assumptions that aren't stated here. Nowhere did Bodz specify only in a spacecraft. Colonization could find extensive use for beer.

Re:Very safe indeed

[EricTheRed]

Not all beer is carbonated with CO2. In fact most of the beer I drink isn't carbonated at all... i.e. true Bitter :-)

The "healthier than water" part comes from hundreds of years ago when Beer was cleaner than water.

Re:Very safe indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

The fermentation process creates CO2, it's the byproduct of the yeast eating the sugar. There is CO2 in your beer, but it's just not carbonated very well.

Re:Very safe indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

but not pressurized

Re:Very safe indeed

[rgbatduke]

The "healthier than water" part comes from hundreds of years ago when Beer was cleaner than water.

Or, the 10 seconds ago where beer is still cleaner than water in much of the world. I grew up in India, under "water discipline" -- drink only water that has been boiled (possibly in e.g. the form of tea) or drink coca-cola (nothing lives in coke!) or drink beer. When we went on long road trips and ran low on water, I drank Golden Eagle way back when I was seven or eight years old. Over seven years, I never got amoebic dysentery, cholera, or more than the usual (mild) viral enterics because I never, ever, drank unboiled water.

If I returned to India tomorrow, I would probably follow exactly the same discipline, possibly with more beer and less tea or coke. Wouldn't you?

rgb

Re:Very safe indeed

[jacknifetoaswan]

Hell, I do this when I'm in Mexico! I'll be there later this month, and I pledge to drink nothing but whisky, vodka, beer, and soda. Seriously, the water and ice will give you Montezuma's Revenge!

Re:Very safe indeed

[alexander_686]

No, you are going to have an issue - I wonder would the solution will be.

You can get good quality carbonation just using yeast - go you your local liquor store and search for bottled condition beer - normally it will be in the Belgian section. But that is not the concern because that is done during secondary formation.

Primary formation is my question. Yeast produces C02 but that is not a concern because you don't want carbonation at this point so you vent the excess C02, but you can't exactly do that in space. On earth you vent the C02 from the "head". The head is the top air space but in space there is no top so that is not a option. IIRC the bubbles of CO2 will be evenly distributed though the fluid.

There is also the issue of getting the sentiment out of mixture but I assume that can be done with a filter.

Re: Very safe indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm smart enough to not go to a shithole like India. What do I want go do there? Visit a call center and beat the accent out of them?

Re:Very safe indeed

[TheCarp]

Spin the container and let the angular momentum do the work of gravity. Yeast migrates to the outer walls, gas to the middle. Interesting engineering challenge, that is probably part of why they are doing it.

Re:Very safe indeed

[alexander_686]

That would work better for the solids then for the gases. At this point the gases would be dissolved into the beer. Think about how long it takes for soda to go flat in an open cup. In this particular case I would think that air pressure would be higher and the exposed surface area would be lower. Both of these would work against the extracting the CO2 from the liquid. I suspect there are better options out there.

If it is only to test if yeast will do their magic in space I would guess that the entire experiment would be self-contained and that the glass walls would be strong enough to contain the expected pressure.

Re:Very safe indeed

[TheCarp]

I wonder how it would work if it were in a soft walled bag. As the yeast produces CO2 faster than it enters solution (which I can easily verify happens at STP by taking a trip to the carboy in my kitchen), then wouldn't surface tension and finite volume allow the bag to inflate leaving a definite liquid vs gas areas? Just because the "head space" isn't at the top doesn't mean there isn't any.

I have seen the water ball demonstrations that crazy astronaut had up on youtube. Water in absence of gravity seems to ball up, and is able to be held in place with surface tension. Seems you could brew without any container at all if it wasn't for needing some way to keep oxygen away.

Maybe you brew in a box, gathehering the wort in a floating ball inside the box, not touching the sides. Vent from the sides using CO2 pressure (keeping out the O2) and clean out yeast by moving it into a centrifuge, or filtering after fermentation.

 

Re:Very safe indeed

[rtb61]

Of course you are dealing with microbes so volume of liquid and solids required can be very limited, allowing for lots of scope of 'spare' space (sic) contained within the experiment. Agitation would still be required with centrifugal action to prevent excess concentrations of particular products at each density boundary layer. Of course just mixing at the start and then doing nothing and watching how it develops would also be interesting.

dehydrates

[Anonymous Coward]

"emergency backup hydration"

I always thought beer actually dehydrates your body because of the alcohol... I like the medical source part tough ;)

Re:dehydrates

[Luthair]

It dehydrates when over 10% content

Re:dehydrates

[Anonymous Coward]

All my beer it 100% content. Unless someone put a hole in the can.

Re:dehydrates

[Anonymous Coward]

All my english it 100% content

Re:dehydrates

[h4rr4r]

Not any normal beer.
Drinking beer only on vacation is a great way to avoid traveler's diarrhea.

Re:dehydrates

[Anonymous Coward]

All your base content are belong to me/us.

Re:dehydrates

[istartedi]

Threads like this make me quite content.

Re:dehydrates

[Anonymous Coward]

And a pavilion of hookers is a cuntent.

Um no

[slashmydots]

"could be useful “in future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source."
Except it dehydrates humans when they drink it and it's not nearly strong enough of an alcohol content to be an antiseptic. The sugars would actually cause an infection. All this article tells me is that the judges were idiots and Colorado alcoholic rednecks start pretty young.

Re:Um no

[Anonymous Coward]

Week liquor does hydrate, and has been used for such at various points of history, and it is most definitely safer than water without fermentation, of course much of the risks of contamination in water don't really exist in space, so that's kind of moot.

Re:Um no

[Anonymous Coward]

I just started brewing this weekend, it's a necessary process for distilling & may give interesting results for other fermentation processes, such as bread and cheese making. So, quick to judge. I've felt a little remiss that my 11 and 12 year old haven't shown more interest, I'm certainly directing them to this article. This kid had a really good idea. Beer is a staple of civilization. How is it that risks of water contamination wouldn't exist in space, I mean it's not a problem now, but any sizable operation (mars colony?) would benefit.

Re:Um no

[ottothecow]

Except that it isn't high alcohol content that makes beer safe to drink even if the original water source wasn't great (the beer that ancient armies were brewing to ensure a safe drinking supply was not strong) and the fact that drinking most beers leads to a net increase in hydration...

Re:Um no

[gstoddart]

All this article tells me is that the judges were idiots and Colorado alcoholic rednecks start pretty young.

Right. And I'm sure that NASA didn't consider any of these things before they decided it would be sent up on a payload, and the The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education haven't considered any of these issues. Nosiree. Just a bunch of idiots who lack your brilliant insight.

Or, alternatively, it's an experiment which has merit, which is why it was selected.

My money is on the latter option.

Re:Um no

[Anonymous Coward]

All this article tells me is that the judges were idiots and Colorado alcoholic rednecks start pretty young.

Right. And I'm sure that NASA didn't consider any of these things before they decided it would be sent up on a payload, and the The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education haven't considered any of these issues. Nosiree. Just a bunch of idiots who lack your brilliant insight.

Or, alternatively, it's an experiment which has merit, which is why it was selected.

My money is on the latter option.

No. Sending children't experiments to space in a PR stunt.

How this went dow is most likely:
Kid heard a factoid about alcohol being a form of water sanitation in ancient times, and pieced together a home-brew rig and submitted it to a competition (possibly as part of a plan to get access to beer).

The judges being adults, see "beer" and "science" in the same sentence and since the concept here "make beer as a form of water sanitation" has decent merit for an 11 year old's project gave the kid the prize.

Re:Um no

[cusco]

I've noticed before, you really don't know much history. Medieval Europeans were possibly the filthiest people in the history of humanity. Rivers were so contaminated that a modern Westerner would likely die after a glass full of water, and wells were actually worse. Everyone who could afford to drank beer or watered wine, the poorest of the poor drank water and frequently died of it. Boiling water to make beer kills pretty much everything in the water, the yeast reproduction crowds out most of its competition, and the change in PH ensures that anything that manages to survive won't be able to reproduce. The alcohol is pretty incidental to the process, and the alcohol content in most beers isn't high enough to act as a diuretic.

Beer can serve to wash wounds for the same reason as urine can; it's clean water. It's not the best thing to use, but it's not hard to imagine situations where it's the best thing available.

Re:Um no

[aXis100]

More than just beer, all fermented products are a staple of civilisation - for both food preserving and flavour. You mention bread and cheese, but there is also yoghurt, salami, soy sauce, tofu & black tea just to mention a few.

Whilst I dont see our space farers making salami any time soon, fermented plant and fungus proteins would certainly be an option.

Re:Um no

[Anonymous Coward]

Beer is resistant to bacterial growth for a number of reasons:

1. Lack of oxygen, as yeast consumes it all
2. Low pH; things like botulinum can not live in beer because of this
3. Hops provide some antimicrobial properties
4. Alcohol provides some protection

Who Judges These Things?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> recently won a national competition...

...judged by the astronauts scheduled for that mission.

Surprisingly, the kid with the poo to food recycling experiment lost again this year.

Re:Who Judges These Things?

[TripleE78]

Technically, beer is food, and alcohol is a waste product of yeast.

So you could say the poo to food kid did win. ;)

"Budweiser, the astronaut ice cream of beers."

[Anonymous Coward]

We have plenty of crappy beer that belongs in orbit already...

Re:"Budweiser, the astronaut ice cream of beers."

[Anonymous Coward]

If they drink enough Busch Light Draft, they could capture the huge surplus of methane and use it for fuel cells or propulsion.

Re:"Budweiser, the astronaut ice cream of beers."

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If you want to use it for propulsion, you don't have to capture it, you just need a suitable valve with a nozzle inserted in the right place.

Re:Noting that beer is safer than contaminated wat

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it worked in Neuromancer.

New definition

[dieu1979]

It's the new moonshine

This is so last quarter...

[BreakBad]

What next, the five year old girl gets flown to the capitol to cook a batch of meth in the bathtub?

You obviously haven't taken the tour of the white house.

Re:This is so last quarter...

[cellocgw]

What next, the five year old girl gets flown to the capitol to cook a batch of meth in the bathtub?

You obviously haven't taken the tour of the white house.

Well, *that* explains why White House tours were cancelled last year.

Re: This is so last quarter...

[Anonymous Coward]

I try to avoid black neighborhoods when I can.

If it turns up liken the stuff the US exports..

[Brandano]

... they might as well just remove a few steps from the water reclamation apparatus and use that.

Centrifuge

[Scottingham]

I would imagine that you would have to centrifuge it to get the yeasties to settle properly as they do back on Terra Ferma. Also, I doubt the bubble airlock would work properly in zero g as well.

The concept is still pretty interesting though. I wonder how the yeast-sugar interaction would be in zero g.

Re:Centrifuge

[jacknifetoaswan]

As a homebrewer, I was actually thinking about this, myself. I'd have to believe that they'll filter the beer after fermentation to remove the yeast cells and prevent autolysis. As for the bubbler, my thoughts are that they'd put the fermenting wort into a vacuum bag with two chambers and some way to concentrate the fluids at one end and the gasses at another, then vent the gas periodically.

One of the thoughts I had was wort boiling in a vacuum, without using heat. I'd pay to see that!

Re:Centrifuge

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the thoughts I had was wort boiling in a vacuum, without using heat. I'd pay to see that!

Wouldn't help. It's the heat that isomerizes the alpha acids in the hops, not the fact that the water is boiling.

Now, you could use vacuum to do low-temperature distillation fairly easily.

better article from denver newspaper

[peter303]

Here.
That STEM school is about a mile from where I am typing this. But I dont know much about it.

Biology in space

[spamchang]

There's no guarantee that yeast will behave in microgravity the same way they do at 1g. Microgravity has an interesting way of affecting protein expression. My guess is that brewing in space won't be very effective. Some people have enough trouble doing it on terra firma.

Also, backup hydration? And "medical source?" Glad we don't let 11-yr olds do important things...!

Reinheitsgebot anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently all the brilliant folks here on Slahdot don't remember their history.

When the water is too polluted and bacteria-ridden, the fermentation process making small beer (low alcohol content) removes the nasties as they can't live in the presence of even small concentrations of alcohol.

Time travel back to 1500s and drink the water in any major European city. If you don't die from it you too will be singing the praises of small beer.

Beer, for when the water WILL KILL YOU!

Reinheitsgebot = German Beer Purity Law. It was considered fair game to throw plague bodies in the wells of your adversaries, but woe unto those who would dare mess with beer!

Re:Reinheitsgebot anyone?

[SleazyRidr]

I thought that the fact you boiled the water in preparing the beer was responsible for most of the sanitizing, as opposed to the alcohol. The alcohol probably helps in the storage, not letting any new bacteria get in and all that. Beer may have had a lot of uses in the past, but I can't really see why we'd still need it in space. Surely there's something a little more advanced to keep the water clean without getting people drunk, and converting your oxygen into carbon dioxide.

Re:Reinheitsgebot anyone?

[sjames]

The boiling sanitizes it, but the yeast and fermentation products keep it sanitized. If you get drunk off of small beer there is something very wrong.

Re:Reinheitsgebot anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

The german purity law isn't about bodies in water, it's a limit on what can be put in beer and it still be legally called beer. Originally it was barley, hops and water, then they realized about the existence of yeast, so now that's allowed. Anything beyond those 4 ingredients, and the beer is considered impure and may not be called beer and must be instead called something else.

from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept

[Anonymous Coward]

If he were really clever, he'd have got them to launch his smart ass into space with the experiment. No laws up there preventing him from drinking the whole batch.

Re:from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept

[zymurgyboy]

It'll probably be pretty gross though. The brewing process (on earth at least) is fairly dependent on gravity. Once the primary fermentation ends, yeast, proteins, and other biproducts naturally drop out (and become the stuff called trub). The beer is sucked off the top and bottled/kegged, leaving that stuff behind. Fining agents, if they are used, forced the process of coagulating some of these things and help them fall to the bottom, but they also rely on gravity to work. Assuming this stuff is brewed in zero G, it would be the most unfiltered beer you ever had. Unfilterd is all the rage these days, at least.

Re:from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept

[jacknifetoaswan]

Or, they could include a fairly simple pump and filter system to remove the yeast, hops, etc.

Re:from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept

[zymurgyboy]

Yeah, but that won't get all the unwanted proteins out of it. If the filter is too tight, you'll take all the good flavors with it. But if this is truly for health and hydration, maybe that doesn't matter. If that's the case, there are already plenty of better ways to make a water supply safe, and they're much quicker/thorough to boot.

Re:from the in-10-years-he-can-try-it-legally dept

[aXis100]

Easy solution, use a hydrocyclone. This uses cenfrifugal forces to seperate particles from water.

To Alcohol!

[Anonymous Coward]

To Alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.

Sounds Illigal

[wisnoskij]

I doubt that America allows 11-year olds to produce alcohol.

Re:Sounds Illigal

[Anonymous Coward]

They can produce it. They just can't drink it.

Re:Sounds Illigal

[PRMan]

They can produce it. They just can't drink it.

Then how does he know whether it's good or not. Oops, he better be careful.

Under Colorado law, Minor in Possession or Consumption of Alcohol, (MIP MIC) Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-13-122, is punishable by a fine up to $250 for a first conviction, $500 for a second conviction, and a jailable Class 2 Misdemeanor for third and subsequent convictions. Penalties also include up to twenty-four hours community service, an alcohol evaluation or assessment, and an alcohol education program or alcohol treatment program, all at the defendant's expense.

In addition, the Colorado Department of Revenue may revoke the driver's license of any person convicted of Minor in Possession or Consumption of Alcohol. For the first conviction, the driver's license revocation will be for three months unless you complete the required alcohol class. For the second conviction, the revocation will be for six months, and for any third or subsequent conviction, one year. (Third and subsequent convictions also become jailable misdemeanors.) For more information about driver's license consequences, see the Colorado Revised Statutes Section 42-2-125 or contact the Colorado Department of Revenue. You must take certain steps to reinstate your driver's license, including paying a reinstatement fee and retaking both the written and the driving tests.

Re:Sounds Illigal

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's a shame that you USAsians don't allow the 18 years old to drink at least draft beer. I mean, draft is OK for them but draft beer isn't? Where's the logic in that?

Re:Sounds Illigal

[Anonymous Coward]

Because 18 year olds dont typically go out, get drafted, then drive around and get in wrecks and kill people because they just got drafted?

And we have selective service, not the draft.

Re:Sounds Illigal

[wisnoskij]

No idea what draft beer is.
But I agree, I think if we are talking less than 5% (or maybe 2-3%) or thereabouts, it should be fine.

But I think it is a culture thing, in America alcohol is for one purpose only, getting drunk. And there are supposed to be medical reasons why that would be bad for the under-developed.

Re:Sounds Illigal

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that America allows 11-year olds to produce alcohol.

I don't think there are any laws stating an 11-year old can't boil grain and add yeast to it. It's the drinking part that is illegal.

Re:Sounds Illigal

[iggymanz]

18 year olds can star in porn movies, they aren't usually "under developed". so they can sell their body for sex on camera but can't drink a glass of wine?

Re:Sounds Illigal

[phoenix_rizzen]

Draft beer == giant kegs of beer connected via hoses to the taps at the bar, poured into pint glasses when ordered.

As opposed to bottled or canned beer.

In space, it's never "Miller Time"

[Erbo]

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2009/07/20/its-never-miller-time-in-space/bloom-county-jpg/

LOL ... Worked for Europe ...

[gstoddart]

Noting that beer is safer than contaminated water, Bodzianowski note that beer could be useful âoein future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source.

Wasn't this pretty much the key to Europe's success for several hundred years, and why the monks were always boozing it up?

Contaminated water wasn't safe to drink, but turn it into alcoholic beverages and it's safer.

Brilliant; beer, making civilization better for thousands of years. That's awesome.

Of course, I'm also forced to ask, did an 11 year old make beer for a science experiment? "No mom, I'm just verifying my test results, it's OK." Very ingenious solution to an age old problem. ;-)

Re:LOL ... Worked for Europe ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe the kid wasn't expelled just for proposing it.

Re:LOL ... Worked for Europe ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there's a lot of argument that alcohol held Europe back. While the Europeans were drinking through the dark ages, the Chinese were consuming tea and building advanced civilization. The introduction of coffee and tea coincides with the Renaissance. The Europeans used opium to oppress the Chinese. Drugs make the world go 'round. Those same Chinese were noted to be better railroad workers because they got sick less. It took them a while to figure out that it was because they only drank tea. The tea-making process involved boiling the water, whereas European workers sometimes drank cold water that was contaminated.

BEER!!!!

[BetaDays]

For your enjoyment - The Lego Beer Song!

http://youtu.be/ATBl4qH9I54

America become so retarded...

[Anonymous Coward]

America become so retarded...

In space, no one can hear you belch.

[VortexCortex]

Disinfect the wound with beer! Wait, isn't "yeast infection" a thing? Besides, we could just design astronauts that produce their own intoxication.

> 2013
> Not brewing beer in belly.
Silly humans...

Brew your own beer.

[Codifex Maximus]

Remember that article about the guy who brewed his own beer? He had a hardy version of Saccaromyces Cerevisiae (sp?) resident in his stomach. Everytime he ate anything starchy he got drunk.

Hope they saved a sample of that yeasty.

Why this hasn't been posted yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggJj5QoboVg

beer as a hydration alternative? wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking genius...